Andy's Circus Train

These are the things you do for your grandchildren. I decided to make a circus train for my grandson Andy. Little did I know it would be such a time consuming project! But here it is. Finally finished!

It consists of six pieces made of two woods, aspen and rosewood for contrast. I like aspen for models as it has a pore-free close grain and holds detail. The design is to represent the old circus trains around the end of the 1800’s. I carefully tried to make it as breakage free as possible using bamboo dowels and tenons to join breakable parts. The cage bars are also made from bamboo (nature’s carbon fiber). The train consists of:

1. An engine with a nameplate of rosewood saying “Andy’s Circus” using Presstype.2. A tender3. A calliope car with a clown playing and a music box playing “Over the Waves” when you wind it up using the clown to wind.4. An animal car with circus posters on both sides, one with a clown, the other with an attacking tiger. I used vintage Ringling Bros. , Barnum and Bailey posters copied from the Internet and put through Photoshop to erase the name and put in it place “Andy’s Circus”.5. A cage car for the tiger and lion, bars made from bamboo as mentioned above.6. And finally a caboose to which applied Presstype gold lettering saying “Andy’s Circus

A circus train needs animals of course, so I carved an elephant with her baby elephant, a zebra, lion, tiger, a zebra, and a giraffe.

Not being content to have the train left on the floor to be damaged, I decided to make a way of displaying it on a wall. This ended being a combination hanging display shelf and storage case that is six feet long. All of the painting and graphics are mine and the case is lined with red felt.

your grandson Andy is a lucky little boy to have such a talented Grandpa …this train has a lot of fine looking details that make it the perfect gift …..also GR8 choice of woods they are simply beautiful together …this is going into my favs …GREAT JOB :<))